Chapter Text
They don’t let just anyone into Azkaban, to visit the inmates. The fact that her husband had (quite tragically, quite regretfully the ministry had assured her) been imperiused onto the Dark Lord’s side in the war should have made it near impossible.
It takes her three years but she gets there anyway.
Azkaban is filthy and disgusting, and the Dementors hovering close feel like slimy tendrils of grief trailing over her soul. She grits her teeth and tilts her chin up and pretends not to notice the ministry escort’s whimpering as they walk down the dank, dimly lit corridors.
Narcissa has come here for the answer to one question only, and she approaches Sirius first. He looks up at her, and his face is gaunt and sunken, teeth yellowed, but his eyes, his eyes are bright with fury.
Even Azkaban could not cow Sirius Black, apparently. No wonder the boy had been sorted Gryffindor. “What happened to Regulus?” she asks quietly, meeting Sirius’ eyes evenly. (Narcissa has looked a real madman in the red, snake-like eyes, with her precious newborn son in her arms, while Lucius crowed about raising him properly for the Dark Lord’s service. Sirius does not scare her in the least.)
But Sirius closes his eyes, and slumps, dropping his head. “Stupid brother, stupid stupid brother,” he’s muttering, and Narcissa snaps, “What did you do to him?”
“I didn’t…I looked for him, Cissy. Last two years, everywhere I could. Hoped he was hiding. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“He is,” she says, watching him closely. “Before the war ended.”
He laughs, hollow and cracked, and the black stones absorb the strange sound, laughter born of an expected grief that still cut as deep. “I spent half my time with the order looking for him. It’s probably why they assumed I was a Death Eater without the trial.”
“You betrayed Lily and James Potter to You-know-who!” The short ministry escort blusters. Sirius shoots him a look like he’s a bug, then looks to her.
“Who killed him?”
She shakes her head, as though she does not know.
“What a lovely side you picked, Narcissa. My poor fool of a brother. He probably didn’t even expect it when Voldemort ordered him killed.”
“That’s enough,” her escort snaps.
“Yes, quite,” she says, sounding disinterested, and stepping back. Doesn’t voice the, ‘Well your side has sent you here to rot, foolish cousin’ that won’t help in any way.
Her heart is pounding in her throat though. It wasn’t Sirius, she was almost certain now. Which meant it had been…
“Shall we proceed to Ms. Lestrange’s cell, Mrs. Malfoy?” he asks, stepping too close to her while trying to put some distance between himself and the nearest Dementor.
“Peter Pettigrew was the traitor, he’s a rat animagus,” Sirius calls as she leaves. “I suggest you buy Draco a cat.”
She turns sharply but her cousin’s looking away now, eyes glazed over.
When she asks Bellatrix, her sister just laughs, loud and mad and mocking, and Narcissa walks away before she can collect herself.
She’d wanted to know who had taken Regulus’ life, wanted vengeance against their bloodline. But when she’d cast a blood-spell seeking the identity of her cousin’s killers, it had led back to herself and Draco, to mad Aunt Walburga, and two threads almost twined together, pointed towards the sea.
She’d come here to ask which of you did it, and now she knows. She steps elegantly into the small boat and looks away from the bumbling fool who loses his footing trying to climb in after her. The pale sun brightens the further they get from the island, but there are fingers, vice-like, squeezing Narcissa’s heart, and no amount of distance between her and that accursed island convinces them to let her go.